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About Nicole

I have recently become a more conscious eater both in terms of my health and in terms of my responsibility. I strive to eat local, organic, humane foods. In June 2010, I found out I had a severe gluten intolerance as well as a dairy intolerance, so those became focuses for me as well. While I would like to think I always had the best intentions with my lifestyle and consumption, the fact of the matter is, I didn’t start to take any type of wide sweeping actions until 2008-2009.After losing both parents extremely young - my father passed away at the age of 40 of a heart attack, my mother at age 58 of cancer - and then being diagnosed with two chronic diseases of my own (Crohn’s disease and Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension) by the summer of 2009, health became a necessary focus of my life. My husband and I were both overweight and I, obviously, was not doing well. However, I was hard pressed to find the major issues in my lifestyle. By the end of the 2009-2010 school year, I had to make a dramatic decision - I would not return to my teaching position in the Fall due to my weakened state and failing vision as a result of my two diseases. After 12 years of embracing teaching as my definition of self, I did not make this decision lightly and decided I would have to take a microscope to my way of life. As I did so, I starting learning a lot about food. While I started the Searching for Sustenance blog before my medical leave, it really became quite a monster in my life during it. As I continue on my medical leave for the entire school year, beginning to doubt that I will ever have the super-human abilities required to take up my beautiful first calling, I fill my days with a second calling - my desire to share all I learn in the food world. My husband takes this journey with me, sometimes reluctantly (but I am the cook!) along with our two dogs Buffy the beagle and Champ the ShihTzu. We live in Staten Island, New York which is a borough of the great New York City in the big ol’ US of A but wish to explore all corners of our country and our planet!